Mod Idea

[eadeater]

I'm not at all knowledgeable about modding MTW or STW, but have an idea that I think would be quiet cool. I don't know if it's possible, but perhaps combining medieval and shogun to one game, perhaps imaginary continents. Two continents, one with medieval nations, the other with japanese factions, and at some point, like a date, both sides develop the technology to cross the ocean, and east meets west. What do you think?

[HicRic]

That'd be very interesting. Warrior Monks versus JHI! No-Dachi take on Ghazi! Thunder Bombers vs Naptha Throwers! Daimyo + Hatamoto against Royal Knights!

Heck, I'd play it. ~;)

Maybe it could be an RTW mod when it comes out? Flaming pigs attack samurai! Elephants get shot by Arbalesters!

My imagination is going to run riot, so I'll stop now. ~:joker:

[katank]

many units find correspondences.

warrior monk=v guard

thunder bombers=naptha

korean skirms=javs

sam archers=treb archers?

cool to have that kind of combat although I'm not sure it will be that realistic.

one is starting several hundred years later than the other.

[Kagetora]

I think that the samurai will have a huge advantage early on in that they take less time to develope their advanced units. Howeve if the game drags on too long, the Medevil units will start to get really advanced and tear the samurai to pieces. Just a thought on how it would work. How will the samurai counter the fact that they have no artillery?

[Duke of Gloucester]

How realistic is the lack of Artillery in STW? Does anyone know?

[Kali]

How realistic is the lack of Artillery in STW? Does anyone know?

~:) Hi DofG,
I read the japanese didn't use or develop siege artillery. Not sure if that was down to Budo or what. Probably didn't wan't them getting into the wrong hands. Plus geography didn't always make there transportation as practical as in other parts of the world. The japanese even continued with wood as the major defensive construction material. But the chinese meanwhile were developing rocket launchers and primitive flame throwers.
A East meets West mod would be cool. BKoB Eastern promise mod in the Engineers forum, goes along way to realising this idea. But just stops short of the far east. Khmer's, Koreans Burmese Arakan, Sung chinese etc etc vs Muslim, Mongol, Hynd and Western units etc could be very interesting. I often wonder how early samurai would compare with there later intensively trained counterparts and how these early samurai would fare against the giant blood thirsty Varangians.
:knight:

[massamuusi]

The chinese flame thrower was far more advanced than the byzantine one, being able to sustain a continuous stream of fire.

*The samurai armour is not equally strong as late medieval plate mail
*They didn't have halberds
*They didn't use axes almost at all
*They didn't use shields almost at all
*Their horses weren't as good as the best europeans
*The lack of any artillery
*European castles
*Europeans don't care about warrior monks

Europeans were also very good at using their weapons, the troops were often very well trained. Also it was perhaps easier to replace a european footsoldier than a japanese samurai, since samurai need to be raised from child, and european footman can be hired from amongst the citizen, and trained couple years.

The distance to travel is so enormous that it is impossible to reinforce troops. If the attacker loses a battle, he has lost the war. Even winning battles with high casualties is disastrous. In the beginning european ships are on the same level, but they quickly start wiping the floor with the japanese ones.

Japanese best benefits are their super morale. But once europeans learn about them not taking prisoners, the europeans will also start putting up real good fight. And europeans are bigger, so the CMAA for example are getting quite nasty against the samurai, being able to block strikes with their shields and get close.

Janissary Heavy Infantry... Europeans raised from childhood to fight for the sultan. These are pretty much european own equivalent to samurai. And the Knights in the west.

[KukriKhan]

Such a mod is under development, being steered/created by barocca, an Admin here at the Org, and boss-man of the Dungeon forums.

It's a big project, requiring lots of time and effort. I expect to see his finished mod late this year.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Such a mod is coming!?:wideeyed:

I loooove you guys

[EatYerGreens]

How realistic is the lack of Artillery in STW? Does anyone know?

I forget if I read this in "The Way of the Daimyo" document, or if it's in the game manual but it said that, although siege-cannon were used, from time to time, they were unwieldy devices which took a long time to get into position and probably only fired a few rounds per hour. They made a conscious decision not to factor it into the gameplay because they didn't play a significant battlefield role in the real conflict. As you probably know, you can win the siege assaults by conventional means in any case.

There's an interesting historical footnote, which I reckon places this comment somewhere in the depths of the WotD document (worth a full read-through, if you've not done so already). It basically said that one of the Emperors had banned the use of the wheel at some stage and that tradition remained in place more or less until the early 20th c, as they began to open up to ideas from the outside world once again.

The original idea sounds like a whacky job-creation scheme but they basically kept large numbers of people gainfully occupied as bearers, carrying goods about on foot. It may even have had something to do with the regular rainfall and roads turning into quagmires which made even carts more a hindrance than a help. These were nevertheless traversable on foot, with the aid of shoes raised up on wooden blocks, apparently.

Needless to say, artillery pieces are useless without wheels but, if you have time on your side, like in a siege, dragging a heavy lump of iron into place on a sled or some such device is a practical proposition.

[Kali]

Such a mod is under development, being steered/created by barocca, an Admin here at the Org, and boss-man of the Dungeon forums.

It's a big project, requiring lots of time and effort. I expect to see his finished mod late this year.

:jumping: Cool,
Goes of to try and find the thread.

[Ludens]

Such a mod is under development, being steered/created by barocca, an Admin here at the Org, and boss-man of the Dungeon forums.
Are you talking about Barocca's STW mod or is he really working on a 'knights versus samurai' mod?

[katank]

I'd lay bets on the Europeans too.

I think the Chinese will own though. Chinese technology was far superior with crossbows in Roman times and navies several times the sizes of European ships. They also had plenty of troops including conscripts.

[eddeduck]

Did any one see Wepons that made britain. The thing on armor was pretty interesting I think that the medival knights in full plate would smash any line of yari samurai.
But it would be closer to call for foot knights/man of arms with poleaxes/sword shields against the lighter and probly more manoverable samurai.
Roll on that mod!!
PS
up the GOONers

[Feanor]

I'm not sure, but I thought Japanese swords were far superior to the western equivalents. I know that better European armour has been mentioned here but the Japanese have to have the edge with their blades. Is this correct or am I just drunk? ~:wacko:

[Accounting Troll]

The edge with their blades? Good pun. ~:joker:

Medieval European swords were far heavier than the curved swords favoured in the Middle East and Japan. A medieval knight basically had to bludgeon his opponent to death. :knight:

Against lightly armoured opponents, the Samuri sword had the *ahem* edge because its lighter construction made it easier to handle, but its slashing strokes would have had limited impact on heavy plate mail armour.

[Tozama]

I'm not sure, but I thought Japanese swords were far superior to the western equivalents. I know that better European armour has been mentioned here but the Japanese have to have the edge with their blades. Is this correct or am I just drunk? ~:wacko:

You are 100% correct. Japanese swords made Euorpean swords look like wooden sticks. I've seen demoonstrations where a Jap. sword broke a European sword when they met being swung at each other. There is no comparison. Euopean swords were far inferior.
The Japanese perfected the art of folding layers of steel literally thousands of times until a blade was strong as it can get. A real Samarai sword took years to make and was virtually unbreakable and could cut through almost anything.
You can find information on these here:
http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi57.htm
http://japanesesamuraiswords.com/
http://samuraiswords.gungfu.com/

[Spartiate]

I thought(perhaps mistakenly)that although the Katana was a far superior piece of workmanship that it was incapable of doing much damage to European armour and that it also could not take a hit from heavier weapons except on its edge.
Lets remember how fast the Japanese transformed their whole nation(including militarily) when they deemed the need arose.While i think that the Europeans would have every advantage in the beginning i do not think it would long stay that way.

[munrock]

The European knight is slow and cumbersome compared to the Samurai. The best that European armour will do is protect the knight until he's been knocked flat on his back and his sword is broken, and then the armour will stop him getting up.

On top of that, a Knight's arms will be clad in plate, and his sword will be heavier. He's just not going to land a blow on a lighter, faster Samurai who's spent hundreds of hours honing his parrying techniques and who goes into battle expecting to be parrying something a lot faster than a claymore.

The knight will tire so much faster.

This is without taking into account the different attitudes to death. The only European that will match a Samurai in frame of mind is a commoner defending his home, or a truly devout cruesader. One will be ill-equipped and the other will be few and far between.

Then there's the Ninja.

And better hygeine.

The difference in date is showing through the details.

[Sinner]

The European knight is slow and cumbersome compared to the Samurai. The best that European armour will do is protect the knight until he's been knocked flat on his back and his sword is broken, and then the armour will stop him getting up.

On top of that, a Knight's arms will be clad in plate, and his sword will be heavier. He's just not going to land a blow on a lighter, faster Samurai who's spent hundreds of hours honing his parrying techniques and who goes into battle expecting to be parrying something a lot faster than a claymore.

The knight will tire so much faster.

This is without taking into account the different attitudes to death. The only European that will match a Samurai in frame of mind is a commoner defending his home, or a truly devout cruesader. One will be ill-equipped and the other will be few and far between.

Then there's the Ninja.

And better hygeine.

The difference in date is showing through the details.

Ok, a few common misconceptions there I'm afraid...

Plate armour of any kind is extremely effective against swords, including the often overrated katana. Yes, katanas are good and well made compared to many other types of sword, but it's also true that not all katanas and other Japanese blades were made to the same quality - the quality of Japanese swords dropped during the Sengoku period due to the lack of time to make good blades and pass on skills from master to apprentice, and generally the best blades are from earlier periods. If anything the fighting style of the katana, which relies heavily on draw cuts, will be less effective against the western plate, which requires powerful cleaving, puncturing or impact blows to defeat.

The method of repeated folding the stock metal bars used to make the blade was not unknown in the West, the Japanese simply took it to an extreme, in part because of the relative low quality of iron ore available in Japan. A Katana could break a Long Sword, just as a Long Sword could break a Katana, a blanket declaration that one will break the other is just wrong.

A knight in any form of physical shape is not helpless when knocked to the ground. Even the heaviest full plate armour only weighed about 80 pounds, about half the load carried by a modern infantryman and far better distributed over the body. Knights were more than capable of vaulting into saddles: there was one amusing incident at a tournament where a knight accused of cheating by tying himself to his saddle, leapt off & on his horse to prove the accusations false; it was also demonstrated as false in a recent British TV series where the presenter purposefully threw himself off the back of his horse while wearing full replica plate and was able to quickly jump to his feet.

A knight might be wearing heavier armour than a samurai, but his sword of choice isn't neccessarily heavier, designs varied wildly in size and robustness. The average knight would however generally have been bigger and thus stronger than the average samurai, potentially offsetting any extra weight of arms and armour. Don't forget knights successfully fought lighter-equiped opponents during the Crusades.

The knight would also potentially have the advantage of the shield, allowing him to devote his weapon purely for offense, whereas the samurai has to use his weapon for both offense and defense. What method would prove superior in the end would rely more upon the skill and experience of the two combatants, but where the knight would have experience of fighting unshielded opponents, the samurai would have had little or no experience against shields.

The skill of the knight also seems to be often underestimated. Just like the children of samurai, knights were trained from childhood and also spent hours perfecting their skills. Knights didn't just lumber up to each other & bludgeon clumsily away until one dropped dead from exhaustion, their fighting techniques were just as skillful and weapons such as the long sword were used for more than chopping and stabbig, sometimes being used more like a spear or quarterstaff!

As for the attitude to death, again it would depend more upon the individual, rather than the common stereotype. Just as a samurai could be disloyal, not all were willing to fight to the death - ronin didn't just magically appear! - and could value their lives just as much as any man. Men stand and fight even when the battle is hopeless for a variety of reasons, often ones that may appear irrational to others, and it's not something unique to the samurai. Consider the men who volunteered for the Forlorn Hopes in sieges such as Badajoz and Ciudad Rodrigo during the Peninsular War: they weren't called forlorn for no reason, few men survived the slaughter that would occur, but they still voluteered and often all for the desire to gain the reputation of being a survivor of a Hope.

Ninja have nothing on the Spanish Inquisition, because nobody ever expects them! Their two main weapons... ~:)

Ok, the hygenie is in favour of the samurai, at least to our modern sensibilities, but it might help the knight. The smell might be so bad that the poor samurai's eyes would water & he wouldn't be able to see too well. ~D

[Ludens]

Excellent reply, Sinner. Samurai are very much hyped, because people only remember the best of the samurai, while we know about the average medieval knight.
One thing I wanted to add:

Ok, the hygenie is in favour of the samurai, at least to our modern sensibilities, but it might help the knight. The smell might be so bad that the poor samurai's eyes would water & he wouldn't be able to see too well.
It means that the average European would have a much better immune system than his Japanese opponents. I am not saying that it would have the same effect as on the Indians (who were often depopulated before the colonists entered their territory), but it will have some influence if the samurai aren't able to live up to their hygienic standards (like in a overpopulated army camp). So disease works both ways.